Room Temperature
by pseudocitrus
Summary: Oneshots written for Touken Week on Tumblr: a mix of fluff, hurt/comfort, post-TG AUs, and more. Prompts: Cooking (Touka/Kaneki), Summer (TK), 10 Years (Touka/Sasaki Haise), Keychain (TS), Uniform (TK), Halloween (TS), Bonus (TS). Done! Now with one last bonus Touka/Sasaki fic
1. Room Temperature

Notes:

+ Just a couple of oneshots for Touken Week on Tumblr!

+ They're all set in some magical ambiguous period between Shuu and Aogiri when Touka and Ken get closer to each other. yeaahh wooo

+ Chapter Summary: Touka needs Kaneki's help deciphering a complicated book. (Written for the "Cooking" prompt.)

+ Hope you enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Room Temperature<strong>

After Kaneki opens his apartment door, a whole minute passes in fidgeting silence before Touka finally says something.

"I need your help," she blurts.

"Ah — s-sure," he says. "Of course. Anything. What is it?"

Her hands are behind her back, and remain there as she lets herself inside. She kicks off her shoes, keeping her back to him somehow, even as she makes a quick round of his apartment.

"So you like books, right?" she asks, peering very closely at his bookshelves.

"Ah — yeah, I —"

"Even really complicated ones?"

"Well, I wouldn't say — _really_ complicated — but, ah —" He clears his throat. "Do you need help studying or something?"

She faces his kitchen counter with a grim mouth. He winces. _I'm having a test_, he's ready to hear her say. _I'm studying Don Quixote. I need to summarize something in the Tale of Genji. I can't understand the characters in this archaic literature_.

"Yoriko's birthday is soon," she manages. Finally, her hands come out from behind her back. She slams a huge, heavy hardcover on the table. The title is, _Let's Make Cute Cakes_!

"I want to make her one of these," she said, "but it doesn't make any sense at all."

She flips through the pages, fast, frantic. "I thought there'd be a simple one that I could do. But each one has a million things you put into it! And it keeps saying stuff about preventing the cake from getting burnt, or too sticky, or it not rising…look at this picture, look at it. In the first one, it's all liquid — and in the second, it's suddenly all solid? After warming it up? And what's this mean — '_room temperature_?' What kind of room are they talking about?"

He tries and fails to prevent a chuckle from bursting out. She shoots him a glare and he stammers, "Uh — you mean they really didn't specify what kind of room? Let me see." And when she shoves the book over at him, he squints at it and says, "Wow, you're right. All it says is 'room.'"

"Right? This is stupid. This whole thing takes so much effort! How do you stuff like this _every day_, every time you want to eat?"

"Well, to be honest, most people don't really bake cakes every day to eat. If you're nervous, you could always just go buy it at a bakery."

"I'm not _nervous_," Touka grumbles, snatching the book back and flipping through it.

"And," she continues, more quietly, "there's no way I'm just buying something from a bakery when she goes through all the trouble of making me food all the time. I have to make her something."

"But," she continues, even more softly, "there's no way I can tell if these even will taste good. Or if I'll do it right."

He wants to laugh again — at her downcast gaze, her white knuckles, her pursed lips as she regards a strawberry roll cake as if it might reach out of the pages and smack her across the face. He approaches, peers over her shoulder.

"All of these look great," he says. "I'm sure all of them taste good."

"But which one tastes the _best_?" she demands. "Come on, haven't you eaten anything like these before? Which one is the best kind?"

When was the last time he'd eaten cake? Hide must have gotten him a cake, at some point. Most likely his mother had made him one, too. He turns the pages, scratching his chin in thought, and then stabs his finger down.

"This one," he declares.

"Be-rry Chi-ffon?" Touka reads hesitantly. Her nose wrinkles. "Are you sure? It looks…so weird."

"Yup. Some of these ingredients are in season right now," Kaneki says.

"And…so what? Is that good?"

"It's really good. It means you're really thinking about what tastes good."

"So only some things taste good at certain times? Ugh." Touka considers just a moment longer. "Alright, that one it is, then. What do we do first?"

"Wait — you want to — make it right now?"

"Of course! You said you'd help, right?"

"Well, yeah, but — I have a shift in two hours —"

"Don't worry about it, Nishio will take it."

"He — really? He said he'd take it?"

Touka rolls her eyes. "Well, not yet. But he will. He still owes me."

"What? For what?"

"For not smushing that loudmouth girlfriend of his."

"Touka, that was — _months _—"

"Come on already, we're wasting time," she says, and without further ado drags him out.

It's a simpler recipe than usual, but still needs a lot of ingredients, most of which they — fortunately — are able to ask Yoshimura-san for. He parts easily enough with flour and oil and milk, and they pick up the rest, including eggs (which Touka sniffs cautiously, with a shrug), vanilla seeds (which Touka sniffs cautiously, with a gag). A baking pan, a bit of fruit. They forget, unfortunately, a pair of facemasks, and can't do anything but swallow and wipe their eyes as they begin the smelly, goopy process of turning ingredients into human food.

It's…fun. It's not sparring, but it's amusing. It's nice for once to be teaching Touka something, rather than the other way around, though she picks up quickly, and has a frightening (if not entirely startling) talent for beating yolks and butter and batter. After a while she figures out the recipe's rhythm and is measuring out powders and liquids in advance and hands him the next ingredient without prompting, helpfully pointing out lumps and slowness in his own endeavors.

Touka shoves the pan into the oven, sucking in a breath as the machine's heat abrades her fingers. The smell of warming dough becomes heady and pungent. She flings open all the windows and Kaneki drags a fan into the room to disperse the fumes as they continue on to the frosting.

"It's so hard to breathe," she coughs, and just as she does, Kaneki's hand slips and the cream he's combining splatters out of its bowl and across her face. She pales, her whole face contorting in disgust, her mouth opening in a shriek — "_What the hell, Kaneki, what the fuck, get it off me_!" — and before he can think he reaches over and thumbs it off her cheek and into his mouth.

They both freeze, eyes widening in shock, and horror. Touka blinks, flushes. Kaneki flushes too, and gags.

"Not into the frosting!" she yells, tugging the bowl away from him, so fiercely that it splatters even more onto her.

"Dammit!" she hisses. And then: "Don't you dare throw up! Not in the frosting! _Don't_!"

"I — I won't —" But it takes everything in him to spit out his mouthful into the sink with little more than a shudder.

Her clothing is oily with butter, stained with berry juice. She's covering her mouth and Kaneki hastily ushers her into the bathroom where she can remove her shirt in private. He thrusts in one of his shirts for her, and she comes out wearing it, looking a little pale but otherwise unharmed. And definitely more determined than before.

"I'm not going to let this stupid cake win," she growls, and makes a new batch of frosting to replace what was lost, stabbing and grinding the beater with vengeance. He quietly puts her shirt into the wash.

The timer rings. They bring the cake out, and Touka hisses at the burnt edges, and there isn't a scissor to trim them off, but Kaneki manages to maneuver his kagune into clumsily slicing off the cindered dough. He shows her how to spread the frosting over to cover it.

Touka lifts the open recipe book — lowers it, squinting — lifts it again — drops it.

"I think it looks okay," she decides hesitantly.

He regards it. _Okay_ is certainly a way of putting it. It's lopsided — just a little bit — and lumpy — like a creature with a limp. And the berries got too wet, or something, so the cream looks disturbingly bloody.

It is, somehow, exactly the kind of cake he would expect a ghoul to make.

"It looks great."

She side-eyes him.

"Really?"

"Really."

"And it looks like it tastes good too?"

He stares as one side of the cake sags. Berry juice spills over the side in a seed-clotted, scarlet stream.

"You know," he says, "I really think it does."

She huffs. "You're a liar."

"I'm serious! In — in any case — I'm sure Yoriko will appreciate your effort. Are you going to take it to her now?"

Touka snorts. "No way. Her birthday's still in a month."

"A — a _month_?"

"Yeah. So we've still got a ton of time to practice. Well, _I _have a lot of time to practice, I mean. Though," she says, carefully, "it was kind of fun, wasn't it? To bake together? Even if…even if you can't eat this stuff anymore?"

He stares as one side of the cake sags even more. The berries topple from the top of it and glop onto the counter.

"You know," he says, "it really was. Even if I can't eat this stuff anymore."

There are — other things he could appreciate now, after all. He hesitates, then leans forward, and presses his mouth against hers — lightly — with a gentle sweep of his tongue. Touka jumps, flushes, pushes him back lightly.

"Stupid Kaneki," she sputters, and retreats. Circles the kitchen counter. Circles it again. Grabs a spatula to fan herself with. Mumbles, "Dammit, is it getting hot in here? Can't you do something about that? The room temperature's gonna get messed up."

"Is it hot? It seems alright to me," Kaneki laughs, and refuses to agree with her until she kisses him back.


	2. Summer Dessert

Notes:

+ Thanks for your comments on the previous oneshot! They always make me happy to hear and I'm glad people enjoyed it. :)

+ Chapter Summary: Touka eats too many summer treats. (Written for the prompt "Summer." And kinda-sorta for "Candy" too idk)

+ CW for blood.

+ Hope you enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Summer Dessert<strong>

His voice through her phone speaker is tinny.

"Touka-chan? Are you alright?"

Touka drags her phone with her beneath the blanket. "Yeah," she mumbles back. "Why?"

"Um, Hinami-chan said you've been feeling really ill. And you…haven't been to work…?"

"I'm fine," Touka mutters, curling into a ball.

Summer is always excruciating. She's sure there isn't any other time of the year where there are so many things that humans are supposed to eat in such quantity. And inpublic. And in close, close company — the kind that can't be easily escaped to spit out morsels into a plastic bag to stuff into her pocket.

Shaved ice, in rainbow colors and crowned with milk and sugar (the consumption of which is like eating gravel and newspaper congealed in a gutter). Soft serve ice cream, in spiraled pastels and crisp wafer cones (like cold mud piled into a milk carton). Watermelons, all dripping with ruby juice (which tastes, _ugh_, pungent and rotten, and the gross crumbly texture doesn't help).

"There's always room for dessert!" Yoriko had laughed brightly. And what the hell _wasn't_ dessert? They'd had bowls of eel and rice, and popsicles, and dango, and cotton candy, and taiyaki, and —

And now her stomach is gurgling and growling like it wants to kill her.

Whatever. Her stomach can make all the noise it wants. It's just when it starts _twisting_ that she can't —

Ah. Ugh. _Ugh._

She clutches her belly with a groan.

"Touka-chan?" Kaneki calls. "What was that?"

"Don't worry about it," she gasps into the phone. "Just focus on your own problems for once and stop bothering other people, won't you?" She jabs a button to end the call, and rushes to the bathroom.

The next day she feels even worse. She calls in sick again and apologizes to Hinami, who shakes her head — no, no, she'll be fine going by herself to fetch food. Touka manages a little water and tosses and turns in bed. _At this rate,_ she thinks in misery, _I'll never fall asleep._

So it's a shock when she wakes up and realizes two things: firstly, that she managed to doze off after all. And secondly, that someone is here.

_And it's not Hinami._

Her eyes — red and stinging with exhaustion — blink, and become a furious black. She yells and throws off her blanket and her skin twitches, tightens, _bursts_ as her kagune flare out of her and spit sparks. She aims a blow right at the person's head, and is shocked when they catch her arm, as coolly and perfectly as if she'd told them what she was going to do.

Only one person knows her like that.

"Kaneki," Touka realizes dizzily. Her kagune fade — no big deal, she sees, since they'd hardly managed to come out at all in her weakness. What she'd thought were sparks look now like they couldn't have been any more intimidating than drizzle. She crushes her hand to her throbbing head.

"The hell," she mutters. "You scared me."

After some time, she realizes that he's trying to talk to her.

"Huh?" she manages. "What did you…I…_ugh_."

The words _Go the fuck away_ are on the tip of her tongue, but she can't muster the effort to push them out. She waves her hand in a vain attempt to shoo him off, but he catches it again. She can't tell if it's her growling now, or her belly again.

"Touka-chan," she hears, and looks up. Her mouth opens, to say something, and is immediately filled with something wonderful and juicy and soft. She chews and swallows before thinking, and before she knows it there's another bite, and another, each more glowing and delicious and soothing than the last.

Her stomach finally quiets — and then, abruptly, squirms again. She licks her lips, and focuses on savoring her next bite — which, this time, moves against her tongue.

"Sorry," she hears as Kaneki's hand hastily pulls back from between her teeth. "It's all gone."

"Oh no!" Hinami cries. "Onee-chan, do you need more?"

"Touka-chan? …Hello? Touka-chan?"

"What?" Touka snaps, rubbing her aching head.

"Yeah," Kaneki says, "we better get some more."

"Okay. Stay here and watch her, Nii-san! I'll be back soon!"

"H-Hinami, wait —"

The door shrieks open, and crashes shut. The pause that follows is broken only by too-heavy breathing (her own), and another tentative call: "Touka-chan?"

"I'm…fine," she insists, bowing her head. "Just…a minute."

But he doesn't back away. He maneuvers a water bottle to her lips, arranges the blanket around her shoulders, pushes her hair behind one ear. In any other condition she'd fuss about it. Right now, the best she can manage is "I'm _fine._"

"Right," he says. Her vision is still swimming, but she thinks she sees him scratching his chin as he regards her. Sees him glance back at the door. Sees him scoot closer, place a hand on her shoulder, tug down the collar of his shirt. He eases her toward him as he leans forward, and her nose falls into the dip of his collarbone.

_Ah._

His skin smells — good. Her tongue flicks out, sweeps up summer sweat that is savory, and sparkly, and that's all the encouragement her weakened body needs. She rakes her fingers down his sleeve, exposing his skin further, and her teeth sink in.

The taste of him is rich — exquisite. _Like wine,_ she imagines. _Or — beer? Or — sake._ It fills her with the same warmth she sees flushing businessmen at bars. Hunger and nausea had knotted themselves into her every muscle, but with each swallow, her tension miraculously uncoils.

It doesn't take long. She doesn't need much. The instant her rhythm slows down from ravenous desperation, she can't keep up with with his speedy healing. She straightens, blinking until the shades and sharpness her vision recede back into the blur and vibrancy of human-eyed sight. She licks her mouth, wipes it. Swallows, grimaces.

"Um," she says, "thanks."

"You're alright?" he asks.

She frowns. "I was always alright."

A faint smile. "Right." He holds the collar of his shirt away from lingering smears of blood, and scans the room. She puts a hand on his as he reaches for a tissue box, and draws closer, laying her mouth once more on the supple crook between neck and collarbone. She laps up what remains, and this time, instead of rough and frantic, she is gentle, slow, indulgent. She feels him shiver against her tongue, feels goosebumps rise under her lips and the fingers sprawled beneath his shirt.

His whisper is warm. "Are you really feeling better?"

"Yeah," she whispers back, and kisses him. As usual, the trembly flavor of him is filled with a sweetness that fills her down to her toes.

Yoriko is right after all: there's always room for dessert.


	3. Backburner

Notes:

+ Chapter Summary: Waiting, fighting, playing human — all of these are second nature to her. Touka, and the years that pass after Anteiku falls. (AU-y post-TG)

+ Written for the Prompt "10 Years Later."

+ Takes place after the fall of Anteiku. At this point in time, I'm only caught up to the first two chapters of TG:Re, soo...this should probably be considered an AU.

+ Not sure if this was clear yet, but I just wanna say in case it isn't obvious: all of these oneshots are unrelated to each other.

+ Hope you like it~

* * *

><p><strong>Backburner<strong>

**1. **You'd think she'd be pretty good at waiting by now. Or at least accustomed to it. Or, at least, resigned.

The truth is that waiting is as itchy, as achy, as wrenchingly heavy as ever. But there's so much to do that her concerns go…what was that idiom Yoriko taught her?

_On the backburner._

It seems fitting. As Anteiku rebuilds, that silent heat smolders on Touka's spine. Gives an extra bite to the flare of her kagune. Fills her sleep with embers, and smoke.

:::

**2. **The university is a half-hour's ride from her cheap apartment. The train starts empty and crowds as they enter the city proper. Her eyes skate casually across the head of each passenger, peering beneath hats and hoods, searching for white.

Her gaze lingers, too, on suitcases.

In the registration office, Touka's hand hovers over her course packet for just an instant too long. Then she circles the numbers for a literature class, so sharply that the nib of her pen tears an inky hole into the page.

:::

**3. **It gets easier to scrape together enough to purchase her textbooks, mostly because it's easier to figure out which ones are strictly necessary.

Takatsuki's novels are featured at the register. While her change is counted out, she lifts one up, turns it over. Wills herself to believe she'd still find them interesting even if she hadn't once seen these covers in his hands.

_Strictly necessary._

"Excuse me," she hears herself saying to the cashier. "Sorry. Can you add this on?"

:::

**4. **The Doves are changing, evolving, becoming hungrier. She can't believe it the first time an investigator bares not a quinque, but a _kagune_ — sharp, fast, and aimed right at her heart. She dodges it by a hair, twists before she crashes into a building, shoves off of it instead, aims a kick right between her attacker's eyes — and they dodge, with horrific effortlessness.

Touka's eyes widen and she can't stop herself from colliding heavily into a bunch of trash cans. She cries out in pain, and it's more of an accident that she rolls away just in time to see a rinkaku tentacle bury itself centimeters deep into the concrete where her head had been.

Adrenaline — and something else — has her on her feet a moment later.

_Run!_ she hears a voice scream inside. _Run!_

That rinkaku —

— but no, his had been different, hadn't it, at the end?

And yet — the way the Dove had _dodged_ her — as if — they had practiced it a thousand times before —

_Run! Run to him!_

But those tentacles are arching up again, and her ukaku are starting to sputter, and her legs are weakening, and her black eyes are stinging with tears that she can't swipe away without removing her mask, and she runs, she runs, she runs, away.

_Dammit,_ she thinks, not for the first time, _if only he were here — then we would have won, for sure._

(How ridiculous it is, that she still —

No. No. _She believes._ He'll be back.)

:::

**5.** The new investigators are severe, and rapacious, and under their guard the ghouls are more cautious than ever. Touka sticks close to her human alter-ego. Graduates, learns how to cook, brings lunch to work. Her way of eating is famously dainty. No one remarks on the plump, stained wads of napkins that always end up stuffed into her lunchbox when she's done.

Yoriko is employed at a bakery cafe, one of the only places Touka visits recreationally.

"We should get out more," Yoriko says wistfully. "We're getting older, you know? It would be nice to have a boyfriend."

Touka shrugs.

"You're really not interested?" Yoriko wonders. "Oh — what about — a girlfriend?"

Touka shrugs again.

Yoriko's brows furrow. She looks up, as if recalling, and Touka wonders if she can still remember _him_, and the times that she stumbled onto him accidentally. Wonders suddenly if that _backburner_ heat is tangible, if Yoriko hears Touka's jacket rustle as the flesh on her shoulders gives a brisk shiver.

If Yoriko does, she doesn't comment. But she persists with the idea of dating, and the instant Touka responds with something other than pursed lips, the group date is arranged.

"Oh, I can't," Touka says when they drop the glass of sake in front of her, "I'm a lightweight," but it's an unavoidable situation, and she ends up tipping back with the rest of them, first one drink, then two. She excuses herself to the bathroom, stomach clenching. When she staggers out, she freezes.

Yoriko is there, rushing forward, apologizing profusely. But someone else's attention is focused on her too. She doesn't see them, but she _feels_ it. Her ukaku give a harsh twitch. Touka slaps Yoriko's shoulder and mimics her best drunken laugh.

"Oh, no, no, no, come onn, none of that! I looove it!"

When she nears the bar, someone perched on a stool there turns pointedly away from her — ah, there they are, then — that's the watcher. She doesn't dare face them full-on, but out of her periphery she sees their hair is interwoven with white. Someone old, then.

Her heart stops when she sees this mixed-color hair again at Yoriko's bakery cafe, but she keeps her terror concealed. She sits in her usual seat. She feels their eyes, burning into her back. She turns, very slowly, the page of her book. Orders fruit juice, and a scone.

:::

**6.** "I think he likes you," Yoriko laughs.

Touka snorts.

"You're sure it's a he?"

"Yeah, he told me. Come on, Touka, have you really not even bothered saying hi? Or even _looking_ at him?"

"No. Why should I?"

"Well," Yoriko says, "He's always here when you are. Same days, same times."

"Really?" So Yoriko has noticed too. Touka's heart catches. Not with admiration.

"_Yeah,_" Yoriko insists excitedly. Her voice lowers. She cups her hand over Touka's ear. "You should ask him out."

When she sees him for the third time that week, she finally tells Yoriko she'll give it a chance. Truthfully, she's decided it's time to put an end to his sneaking around.

Yoriko cheers discreetly from behind the counter as Touka approaches, taking a breath, steeling her weakening knees. This whole time she has never brought herself to meet his gaze, too unwilling to confirm that he has been looking for her.

But when she finally sees him, _really_ sees him, her stomach drops. _That face —_

She had been expecting someone old, not someone young. And certainly not someone — eerily familiar. The casual lines that she had prepared to speak to him crumble on her tongue.

He blinks at her. Closes his book onto a finger and smiles. It's such a kind expression. A _familiar_ expression. Her heart catches. Not in fear.

Could this — is it possibly — is it really —?

"It's — me," she blurts without thinking. "It's — it's Touka. Kirishima Touka."

"Oh," he says. And then: "Nice to meet you, Kirishima-san."

_Nice to meet you, Kirishima-san._

It's not him. It can't, it can't, it _can't_. He would never say something like that. Regard her with distant curiosity, confusion, and zero recognition. He would never look like this, so trim, with a soldier's posture. She finds suddenly, that she is dizzy. Wrecked by the fall from her too-high hopes.

"Excuse me," said a bright voice. It was Yoriko, holding a steaming mug of black coffee. "Thank you so much for waiting! Your drink," she says to him, setting a mug down.

"And," Yoriko continues, "your drink!"

"Oh," Touka says. She hasn't ordered anything. "Thanks."

"Of course," Yoriko says, setting the coffee on the table and pulling out a chair. Touka sits.

"Do your best," Yoriko whispers, and retreats.

"Weird cafe, huh?" he says, mouth curling up. "You know, it's the first time I've gotten a drink accompanied by...company."

He snickers. Touka stares.

"Was that supposed to be funny?" she realizes.

He coughs. "Uh. Yeah. W-well — not _too_ funny. Just…maybe…a little bit."

Touka leans back in her chair.

Yeah. It's definitely not him.

:::

**7. **The afternoon, and the next day, and the next week, passes in remarkably compatible chatter. Sasaki Haise shares her opinion on books — can share stories about his coworkers for hours — is amusing to watch when he searches his brain desperately for puns (a struggle that happens often).

"Got it!" he says, sitting up straight so suddenly that she jumps.

"Wh — what?!"

"It's made out of metal!"

"S-so?"

"_So_!" He bangs the cabin's walls, makes them ping. "It's…a _ferrous _wheel!"

She buries her head in her hands, but not before she can hide a brief spasm of a smile.

He suggests all of their meetings: the ferris wheel, a movie, the observation deck of a tall government building, a ferry that they take at sunset, watching as the skyline lights up.

Every time she meets him she is guarded, prepares herself for what she had wanted to tell him all along — _leave me alone_.

But instead he makes her laugh. She points out objects of interest and he contemplates and holds them aloft and aglow in a new light. It's in his vicinity that she feels, for the first time in years, that her motions aren't scripted and scrutinized and humanly perfect.

They give each other no labels, and make no promises. She doesn't make the mistake anymore, of saying _forever_, or keeping an ear open for it.

But instead of _leave me alone, _their last words end up always being "Goodbye."

And, "See you later."

:::

**8. **She finds herself completely at ease with him, though she sees him only every once in a while. Sasaki apologizes for how busy his nebulous work keeps him, but the distance doesn't bother her at all. It makes it easy for her to maintain her own work schedule, her free time, her diet.

Still, Touka looks forward to every time they meet, and it doesn't strike her strange that any of their dates ("They're_ dates_," Yoriko assures her with a squeal) involve eating.

"Huhh? Really? That's so weird," Yoriko says.

"Is it?" Touka asks, trying to keep calm. Come to think of it, it is — but she'd been too relieved to notice. It had just been so nice to not worry about it, for once. To live her life as if the increasing number of ghouls being hunted down isn't something relevant to her at all. To live her life without the sense that there's a fire at her back, growing, growling, about to consume her at any moment.

_That_ thought is the one that makes her stop sipping her drink.

(_I believe, _she thinks. _I trust him. He'll be back.)_

(But.)

At the station, she waves as Sasaki steps, smiling, off the train.

(There's no rush.)

:::

**9. **She feels the most relaxed that she's been in years, and that's why she's caught off guard.

Her kagune is almost at her victim's throat when he turns. His back, which had been humped and shuddering and bent, straightens into a soldier's posture. He unleashes a quinque.

_Shit — SHIT —_

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_! She's so hyperaware of the hybrid Doves that she forgot the danger of the normal kind, forgot her caution, forgot what a trap looks like. The left ear of her mask is swiped clean off. She bounds backward, flips, rushes forward with kagune flared to scare him, but he doesn't take the bluff — he has a koukaku, _fuck_ — he beats her down, and again, and again, until she shrieks so startlingly loud that he pauses for the single instant that it takes for her to burst ukaku needles into his face and flash away into the night.

_Blood everywhere_.

She spills it, bleary-eyed, on as many roofs as possible, confusing her trail, even as she tears down someone's shirt from a laundry line and winds it tight. She doesn't go home — doesn't want to risk that they'd follow her back to her single remaining shelter in this world — she sticks to the shadow of an alley, hiding her bloody dress in a stolen jacket.

_I'm going to die_, she thinks wildly. _I'm going to die, and he will never know —_

Terrified tears gather on her clenched fingers.

_I will die, and leave without a word, and Sasaki will never know_.

(She doesn't die.)

(But that last thought stays when she wakes up, alive, in that old alley. That last thought, and its flame-brightness, consuming everything.)

For the first time, she calls him, and asks, "Do you want to go to a bar?"

"Ah…sure," he says. "When?"

"Tonight."

The next time they meet, his eyes behind his glasses are dark beneath. "Had some troubles yesterday," he admits with a humorless chuckle. He eyes the sake she pours for him. They exchange glances, then cheer each other, and tip the glass back, and another. She visits the bathroom before they leave, checks her appearance and evaluates her stomach, which feels…mostly fine, thank goodness.

He doesn't protest when she follows him into his neighborhood. His home. His door. He turns toward her with his exhausted eyes and without further ado she smooths a hand over his wrinkled brow. Removes his glasses and folds them into her collar.

Presses her mouth to his. Feels him sigh against her, and return her kiss, winding a tongue across her upper lip, winding his arms around her waist and beneath her blouse. His hands are so much larger than she remembers _his_ being, and her body is so much hungrier than she remembers, too. Her heart is swollen with years of waiting, years of desire for closeness that _he _had never given her. It had all been so long ago — maybe it was just an illusion.

He kicks apart his messily-folded futon and they collapse onto it, she tearing at his jacket and shirt, he pulling her dress over her hips. She finds her breath coming raggedly, feels her vision constrict as her human eyes recede, and she presses her hand on his eyes and says, "Close them."

"Kirishima-san," he whispers, and she blushes but repeats, "_Close them_."

He does. No argument, no puns. For good measure she finds his discarded tie and wraps it around his head, and he doesn't protest. Doesn't make noises of alarm when her kagune glimmer faintly as he runs his fingernails over her shoulderblades. She fumbles with his zipper, sets her legs on either side of his waist. His nails dig in with a sharp inhale as her weight settles and twists down.

"_Touka_," he gasps, and pulls her close, holding her closer than _he_ ever had. His hands rest everywhere she wants them to, and it's like he knows her already, to the marrow.

"I feel," he murmurs, "like I've been waiting for this for a long time," and she kisses him, sucks the tip of his tongue, and each of his trembling, curling fingers.

She murmurs back. "Me too."

:::

**10. **_Nothing lasts._

You'd think she'd be pretty good at understanding it by now. Or at least accustomed to it. Or, at least, resigned.

The truth is that hope is as itchy, as achy, as wrenchingly heavy as ever. But there's so much to do that her concerns go on the backburner. Somehow, even after everything that's happened, she thinks, _This will last_.

(And she believes it — even when there's a knock on her door — even when she realizes she's staring, unmasked, straight into the face of an investigator — even when she tears out of her apartment window like a wild creature with them all chasing her, quinques biting and slashing at her ankles, her arms, anything they can reach. They're yelling, they're yelling, they're yelling — incomprehensible things, furious things, things that she can barely understand even once they finally flick her like a fly into an alleyway.)

(Her ukaku are almost out.)

(This is it.)

(As their shadows loom on her, she thinks, _I didn't come back after all, _and maybe it's the loss of blood, or RC cells, but when she looks up the blurry shades around her coalesce into someone that looks very much like Ka…no, Sasaki. She feels a stab, of relief. At least she can say it — at least she can say it, all the things that people never told her before they went. She spits blood.)

"Goodbye," she manages.

And, "See you later."

She expects her Sasaki-ghost to smile. Instead, when she looks up, his face is filled with shock. He's sweating, panting. One eye, the left, is black.

"Touka-chan," he breathes.

And.

She _believes_.

Her eyes water. Her teeth, her fists, clench. Her heart races; her body fills with incredulous heat. Suddenly, she knows. _No, no, no._

_I can't die here_.

"Please," she gasps, trying to push herself to her feet. "Help me."

And his hand grabs hers.

* * *

><p>End note: this is kinda silly, but the pun that Haise is making in my mind when he says "accompanied by…company" involves the words "oyatsu" ("snacks") and "yatsu" ("person"). ...hahahahahaha o_o<p> 


	4. Usagiland

Note:

+ Hey everyone, here's another Touken Week fic (despite the fact that I'm not sure Tousaki can _really _count as Touken just yet…). I think of the stories each day so I'm not sure yet if I'm going to write anything for the remaining days. But for now, I just wanna say thank you so much for your faves/comments/support. They really make my day.

+ This one is meant as an insert (between parts 7 and 8) into my previous post-TG AU fic, "Backburner." (aka chapter 3 of this fic. Whoops, guess it wasn't a oneshot after all.) Prompt: **Keychain**.

+ Chapter Blurb: "Oh," he says, pointing. "What?" Did something fall out? She scans the ground, but he shakes his head. "No, I was just surprised that you…have so many keychains. They're all…rabbits?" (AU-y post-TG oneshot)

+Hope you enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Usagisland<strong>

"So how are things going with Sa-sa-ki-san?" Yoriko asks in sing-song.

Touka's eyes narrow; she sighs, shrugs. Yoriko gasps.

"Oh no! Did something happen?"

:::

_After the movie, he exhales a pale plume of breath into the chilly air and rearranges his scarf. Regards the rain with a wrinkled nose. Touka tugs her cellphone out of her pocket and checks the time._

_"Oh," Sasaki says, pointing._

_"What?" Did something fall out? She scans the ground, but he shakes his head._

_"No, I was just surprised that you…have so many keychains. They're all…rabbits?"_

_She stiffens, but not visibly enough for Sasaki to take notice. He reaches toward them, holds them up. Dangling alongside her apartment keys are half a dozen rabbits of various shades and magnitudes of fluffiness._

_He smiles at them faintly. She holds her breath. And then he says, "You must really like rabbits, huh?"_

_Her heart pounds in her ears. Sasaki isn't_ — him — _she knows that. She_ knows _that._

_So why does it hurt so much to be reminded of it?_

_It takes all her effort not to snatch the keychains back and out of his sight. Instead, she gives him the kind of smile a calm, normal, human woman would, and replies, "Yeah."_

_But Sasaki's smile wavers._

_"Are you alright?" he asks. "Kirishima-san?"_

_"Dammit," she snaps, before she can stop herself. "Didn't I just say that I'm fine?!"_

_He blinks, startled by her tone. Great, just what she needs — to get mad at him for not being_ — him. _Just fucking great. She reaches for her keychains and yanks them back, but he isn't expecting it — he's still gripping them — and her keychains are old, so many years old, and threadbare from where she's worried them between fidgeting fingers. One snaps off, flies, lands into a deep, muddy puddle. She makes a choked noise and Sasaki quickly bends into the water, fishing for it with his bare hands._

_"K-Kirishima-san — I'm — I'm so, so sorry —"_

_"Stop," she tells him, and her voice raises again as he looks up at her in shock. "I said, leave it!"_

_"I — there's no way I could possibly —"_

_"I d-don't need it," she says, and is horrified to hear in her voice a wet stutter. A hint of her shaking throat._

_"Seriously," she says, "don't worry about it, it's not like it — like it — means anything."_

_And she starts walking away, before either of them can say anything else._

:::

"No," Touka says. "Nothing happened."

Yoriko frowns. And, thankfully, drops the subject, and remains silent when Touka presses a hand against her forehead.

She can't do this. Keychain aside, it really had been a pleasant date. Almost too pleasant, really, given that he was just some random human with weird hair and even weirder humor.

_Be honest with yourself. Why is it so nice to be around him?It's not because Sasaki himself is anything interesting._

It's because his face is so familiar. His face, and his polite way of speaking, and his kindness. It's because the paleness of his hair makes her heart ache. It's because every time his hand moves, she holds her breath to see if it will scratch his chin.

_I can't do this._

:::

That night, her phone rings. The screen reads _Sasaki Haise,_ and she inhales deeply. She rehearses it once, softly, quickly: "I don't want to see you anymore." She picks up.

"Kirishima-san," Sasaki says excitedly, "do you want to go to Usagisland?"

"I…what?"

"U-sag-island!"

"Usa…" Her brows furrow. _"Where_? Is this some kind of pun?"

"Aha — yeah. It's alright, it's not that good." He clears his throat. "Anyway, what I'm talking about is…Rabbit Island! That island that has all the rabbits running around on it! You can buy food and they'll come over in droves. There's tons of pictures online, of people completely buried in fluffy rabbits. So, do you want to go this weekend?"

Dammit. She does.

:::

It takes two hours by train and ferry to get there, and Touka tries to maintain her composure as Sasaki immediately runs off to find someone selling rabbit food. She gazes around, and realizes that a low clump of bushes nearby are actually a bunch of rabbits, crouched and lounging together. Her mittened gloves fist in her pocket. They're so cute. _They are. So. Cute._

She kneels, waving at them hopefully. Maybe they'll come over? But then someone grabs her hand and turns it over and dumps into it a mound of pellets, and a carrot.

"Here," Sasaki says. His hand stays with hers, holding it out. His breath is warm in her ear. He kneels beside her, legs bent and on either side, and she feels heat rising to her face. In her periphery, all she can see clearly are the white hairs. This close, the soft scent coming off him makes her heart ache.

Some of the rabbits are braver than the rest and make their way toward her. Their noses quiver on her gloves. Once a couple of them have started eating without being attacked, the rest begin hopping over enthusiastically.

"They really don't _carrot_ all unless you have food, huh," Sasaski whispers, and Touka groans. That when one of the rabbits makes its move.

"Hey — _hey_!" Sasaki yells as it grabs the carrot in its teeth and begins to hop away with it. Touka yells too and tries to snatch it back, but only succeeds in dropping all the food she has. Hearing it all scatter, more rabbits appear from nowhere, and soon they are totally overrun in fuzzy faces and fuzzy bodies, and Touka is laughing in delight, and she doesn't see Sasaki watching her with a smile that is both bewildered and helplessly warm.

:::

They don't have the money to persuade the rabbits to stay forever, and soon the rabbits move on to bob and hop en mass at the ankles of tourists with fresh food. She sighs wistfully as they go, and Sasaki chuckles.

"Kirishima-san," he asks, "have you ever had a rabbit?"

"No," she replies, with another sigh.

"Oh? Why not? It's clear they make you really hoppy." When she glares at him, he coughs. "Uh, happy. Really happy."

"I'd want to be able to provide a good home," she explains as they continue walking along the shore. There's a pier nearby, with lights strung up between the storefronts, glowing appealingly in the dimming evening.

"And? You don't think you'd be able to give one a good home?"

"Well, my apartment is too small. They need a lot of space, if you want to make them hop…happy. And they also need a partner, or they'll die of loneliness."

A rabbit could also probably use an owner who might not be hunted down by Doves at any time.

"Is that so," he says thoughtfully. They make it to the pier, where there are stalls selling soup and roasted fish and rabbit-shaped cakes and cookies.

"Hungry?" he asks, and doesn't press when she shakes her head. Everything smells foul; she can't even bring herself to pretend. She draws the lapels of her coat up against the odor, but makes her body shake and gives a small "brrr" noise just in case.

"Cold?" he tries next, and when she nods he unravels his scarf and wraps it around her neck.

"How's that?" he asks, smiling. And she looks up at him.

Really looks.

Sasaki is so like him. The cut of his hair. The nervous smile. The smell of his stupid scarf. He raises his hand and scratches — the back of his head, nervously.

"W-what is it, Kirishima-san?"

Going on trips, seeing new things, walking along together as the sun sets — these are all the quiet dreams that she had had. But in them, it was not Sasaki, but _him_ that had been by her side. And no matter how similar they look…it's unfair. Disingenuous. To both her, and Sasaki. The ache that _he_ left in her is the only thing that allows her to feel anything at all for Sasaki. She still believes, after all.

_He will come back._ And Sasaki isn't…even if he's just as kind, he…just _isn't_…

_I can't do this._

"I should head back soon," Touka says, looking back toward the ferry terminal. "I only came to see the rabbits. And if I wait too much longer I'll miss the train back."

"W-wait," he says. "I — um — wanted to do one last thing here."

"That's fine," Touka says with a shrug, and uncoils his scarf to hand it back to him. "I can go back on my own."

"Wait! I mean — please wait?" He doesn't take his scarf from her when she holds it out to him. "The, um — the last train won't leave for a while — I checked. I'll go back with you. Just wait a few minutes. You can get coffee!" he suggests, pointing at a stand not far away. "To keep you warm. Just don't leave yet."

_Don't leave._

Touka bites her lip.

"Five minutes," she hears herself agreeing.

"Alright," he says in relief. "I'll meet you at that stand."

She orders an americano, still wrapped in his scarf, and leans against the storefront with a huge sigh. This is ridiculous. She's partway to deciding to leave his scarf on the counter and just go when he comes back, running, panting.

"Back," he gasps, hands on his thighs. "Thanks for waiting."

"You're late," she tells him.

"Yeah, I…I had to check a couple stores, because they were out. But, I finally found one." He straightens, holds out a bag to her, wrapped prettily in purple paper. It's taped shut with a sticker of the island's smiling mascot, a puffy brown rabbit.

Great. A gift. Just what she needs when she's trying to move on from him.

"You can open it now," he says, "if you want," and though she doesn't want to, she tears back the tape, keeping her face composed. If she's going to give it back, it might as well be sooner rather than later.

She reaches in. Pulls it out. Rolls it over in her palm so it faces her. She shouldn't be surprised, but is.

It's a keychain with a plush rabbit on it — the island mascot.

"Because your previous keychain went — haha, um — down the drain," Sasaki says cheerfully, and with a snicker. "I guess these things are really popular, they were sold out everywhere and this was the last one left. Honestly, it's probably good that I found it for you, right? Since this way it can be with your other rabbits. And not be alone."

And not be alone.

Touka stares at its smiling face until it begins to blur. Before she can hide it, before she even realizes it's there, a tear slides down her cheek.

"K — Kirishima-san?" Sasaki stammers. "Are you alright?"

Her fingers clench, hiding the keychain from view.

"I…I'm fine."

"But you're —" He's pale, suddenly. He holds his hands out like he wants to comfort her, but hangs back. "Kirishima-san, I'm sorry, I — I just thought — I mean, if you don't like it —"

She holds up a hand. Places it on his shoulder.

"I like it," she reassures him, and before her hand can cover it she knows that he sees her uncontrollable smile.

Together, they open up the ring of her keychain and soon the rabbit is dangling with the rest. Its bright, brand-new fur sticks out against the worn-down plush of the others. But somehow it fits in just right.

:::

(The trains are crowded with tourists on the way back, and it takes forever to finally get seats on one. By the time they do, it's so late they've exhausted all conversation, and sit side-by-side in comfortable silence.)

(He thinks for a moment that she's just lost in thought, looking out the window, but then he feels a weight on his shoulder. Blinking, he looks down.)

(She's fallen asleep. Her hair sweeps forward over her face, over his collar.)

(He nudges her, discreetly. Whispers.)

("Kirishima-san.")

(She doesn't respond. He swallows.)

("Kirishima," he tries. And then, more quietly, "Touka-san. Touka.")

(No, not that, that _definitely_ feels weird. With a self-mocking smile, he says, "Touka-chan," and when she shifts he blushes furiously. _Oh no._)

(Her mouth moves. Mumbles. "Kaneki?")

(He goes still. Very still.)

(But she's still asleep. Her eyebrows knit; her fingers tighten, still coiled on her rabbits. He doesn't dare move until she settles again, with a sigh. Her head nestles closer, against his neck.)

(After some time, he feels drowsy enough that his head tips onto hers too, and he falls asleep.)

* * *

><p>End notes:<p>

+ One day I really desire to visit the real Okunoshima I think that would just be sooo tight -happy sigh-

+ THIS IS ALSO SILLY, but Haise's joke about "other keychain went down the drain" is, in my mind, from a Japanese pun you could make with "kiihorudaa" (keyholder, aka keychain) and "horu" (to abandon, to give up on).

+ Thanks for reading!


	5. Shhhh

Notes:

+ Thanks again for your faves and comments! -heart-

+ Like all the others, this is written for Touken Week! Prompt: **Uniform**.

+ Chapter Blurb: Really, Hinami can handle quite a lot on her own. Sometimes she feels so guilty about how often people feel the need to take care of her. (Touken)

+ Hope you enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Shhhh<strong>

There's not a lot that Hinami can do — at least, not a lot when it comes to protecting people, or providing for them. So she does her best to pick up slack wherever she can find it, tries hard to make things easier for everyone in general. While Onee-chan is busy at Anteiku and school, Hinami cleans, studies, even puts on a plain white surgical mask and goes out to pick up food (both the real kind and the fake kind, so that their cover isn't blown).

Really, she can handle quite a lot on her own. Sometimes she feels so guilty about how often people feel the need to take care of her.

:::

_Touka and Kaneki stare as Hinami's hand begins to loosen on her pencil. Her eyelids droop — then her head — and then both pop up again, abruptly, as she gives a startled little huff. She blinks rapidly, stares hard at her homework._

_A minute passes. And then._

_Droop…_

_Droop…_

_Pop!_

_Kaneki snorts out a laugh, and quickly smothers it as Touka glares._

_QUIET, she mouthes._

:::

Hinami had been working on…homework? She'd asked Onee-chan if Nii-san could come over, and she had rolled her eyes and shrugged, which meant it was fine.

Thank goodness. Nii-san was so good at literature, and so good at tutoring — way nicer than she'd expected any human(-ish) person to be. He and Onee-chan had come over right after their work shifts, both still in their work uniforms.

:::

_"I think she's really asleep now."_

_"Oh, really? Let's get her to bed."_

_"Huh? What are you doing? Wait —"_

_"It's alright, I'll be gentle."_

_He eases his arms around Hinami's body, carefully, and lifts her up. Her head lolls against his chest and she murmurs a bit, but doesn't awaken. Touka hovers as he carries her to her bed._

_"Goodnight, Hinami," Kaneki whispers, drawing her blanket over her, and Hinami mumbles something and curls up against her pillow._

_For a while they watch her, silently. Making sure. When Hinami doesn't stir again, Kaneki turns to Touka with an embarrassed smile, scratching his head._

_"So…uh…want me to carry you next?"_

_Touka snorts. Looks away to hide the red rising to her face. "Are you serious? Where?"_

_"Um…well…to bed. Of course."_

_This time she's too flabbergasted to reply. He stifles another laugh._

_"It's alright," he says. "I'll be gentle."_

:::

Her papers and things are still on the table. Hinami approaches them, and grimaces. There's a long, messy scrawl on one of the papers from where she must have fallen asleep mid-stroke. She sighs and starts to collect them, scraping together papers on the table, picking up a sheet from the ground, picking up another sheet from beneath a cushion…

She pauses, blinking. Why are there papers _everywhere_?

:::

_Despite his big words, they don't quite make it to the bed. Kaneki is struggling with carrying Touka around, mostly because she keeps fidgeting._

_"T-Touka-chan," he says, stumbling, "if you keep — moving — I can't —"_

_"It's your fault!" she hisses, as quietly as possible. "You keep — touching all my — my ticklish spots —"_

_"That — can't be true unless you're ticklish all_ over — _and I happen to know that the only spots you have are_ —"

_"S-stop! Wh-what the hell, are you seriously saying stuff like that? Just put me down, put me down!"_

_He does — trying to let her down gracefully — failing. She curses as her back hits the table and he stammers an apology — and then they both look back towards Hinami's bed, holding their breath._

_Silence._

_Touka reaches out and dims the lights. They look back at each other. The air feels heavy, suddenly — and too hot. Kaneki swallows; Touka purses her lips. And then they reach forward and begin to undo each other's ties._

:::

Some of these papers appear to be part of Touka's schoolwork. She didn't put them away after she was done? They must have been really busy.

The papers rustle as she gathers them all up and sorts them, and the noise wakes Loser, who immediately begins bobbing and fussing.

"Shhhh," she implores Loser as he begins to flap vehemently on his perch. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" She hastily pours seed into his food dish, and strokes her index finger along his crest soothingly.

"Hush, Loser-chan! Onee-chan was up late last night, you know! She needs her sleep."

:::

_Possessing identical uniforms means there's not too much to figure out about the other person's garments. Kaneki undoes the buttons of her vest while Touka undoes the clasp of his pants; then they switch. It's still a bit clumsy, though, and when he can't get a good grip on her clasp, she can't quite suppress a sigh. She pushes him over, and then onto his back. She lets him get a better hold on the clasp, and then slides one leg out and swings it over his waist._

_The day's shift was a long one, and the scent of coffee is pressed into every seam. It exudes with every motion. Fills every inhale. Touka feels light-headed with that smell, the bitterness and poignancy of it — and of the thing it barely masks, beneath._

_If there's one thing ghouls are good at, it's smelling out humans. She knows well their oily, sour fear — their crisp, pungent desperation._

_But. She finishes undoing the buttons of her blouse. Bends down against Kaneki's neck, letting the sides of her shirt and vest frame the V of his exposed skin. Takes a deep breath._

_Until Kaneki, she didn't know how absolutely sweet and mouthwatering a human's desire smelled._

:::

With Loser satisfied, Hinami backs away, makes coffee for herself, then wanders around the house, looking for something to do.

Their apartment is small, but there's no lack of little tasks. There are some vegetables going bad in the fridge, some of which she chops finely and flushes down the toilet, some of which she fries and then throws away. She does the dishes (which consist of the frying pan she just used, and half a dozen mug cups).

She goes to the balcony to check on their laundry line, and trips on the way there.

"Oof —!"

_What?_

What are all these books doing on the ground?

:::

_Touka raises a finger to her mouth just as Kaneki leans forward toward her, with the result being that he kisses it and blinks in shock. They smother their laughter. Touka quickly moves her fingers elsewhere, and swallows down a gasp as Kaneki does the same._

_As she caresses him him, Kaneki shudders, mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like_ "Touka." _That desire-smell is coming off him in waves, dizzying. She shakes her head and when she focuses on him again her eyes are black, and able to see how his pulse glimmers beneath his skin, getting faster. In the dimness, she sees him looking up at her too. With only one human eye._

_Oh, shit —_

_She quickly shoves her hands beneath his vest and shirt and push them off, just in time to avoid them being shredded by his kagune. They squirm, out of control, and Kaneki flushes as one makes a wild sweep and pushes everything off one bookshelf._

_"Sor —" he starts, but is cut off by her kiss, her ragged breath, her tongue in his mouth. He's interrupted, too, by his hunger to taste her back._

:::

Hinami crams the books onto the shelf. Taps a finger against her cheek. Furrows her brows, removes the books, puts them back in again in another order. How did they go again?

Well…maybe it doesn't matter. She sighs and as she stands, she abruptly stops. Squints.

Is that…a _hole_ in the wall?

:::

_"Sorry —"_

_"Kaneki, you're_ really _going to have something to apologize for if you don't —"_

_"If I don't —?"_

" — _this inst — ah!"_

_No more apologies follow._

:::

Luckily there's some extra white tape in the closet. She measures it out precisely. Cuts. Places it.

There. The tape is _slightly_ off-color, but…well, maybe she can figure out how to fix it better later.

She sweeps out the balcony. Takes down and folds some clothing. Replaces the toilet paper. Stoops to straighten the shoes in the entryway. Blinks, head tilted.

She checks the time. Then goes to Onee-chan's door and knocks.

"Onee-chan?" she whispers. She knocks louder, repeats herself. "Onee-chan?"

There's a rustling. "H-Hinami?" she hears. "What? What is it?"

"I — um — wanted to make sure you'll get up in time," Hinami says nervously. "Don't you have a shift soon?"

"Um…no," Onee-chan replies groggily. "Not soon. I've still got a couple hours."

"Oh," Hinami says, "I see." She nibbles her lip. Shifts her weight from foot to foot. "Um…even if it's in a couple hours…don't you think you should be there to meet Nii-san? He said he has the early shift today and…you know. He always seems so lonely on that shift."

From beyond the door, a pause. A scattered flurry of _thunks_.

"Y-you're right, Hinami — thanks. Um — listen — aren't we out of a couple things? Coffee, maybe? Anything?"

Hinami considers. "I guess we could always use some more coffee," she replies, and Onee-chan says, "Yeah! Yeah, would you mind getting some? Right now?"

"Sure," Hinami says. She gives a small laugh. "I'll be off, then. See you."

"Be safe!"

Hinami leaves, and takes her time. When she gets back, Onee-chan is scrambling back and forth, rushing to get ready for work herself. She's yanking on her blouse and vest, draping her tie over her shoulders.

"Thanks," Onee-chan says hastily as Hinami puts the coffee away. "See you later, okay?"

"Bye," Hinami says, waving. "Have a good day."

After the door shuts, Hinami goes back to the entryway, just to make sure. This time, both Onee-chan _and_ Nii-san's shoes are gone.

She sighs in relief and collapses onto the couch.

It's getting harder and harder to play up to their belief that she has no idea what's going on.

For their sake, she hopes no one else notices that Onee-chan is wearing Nii-san's vest.


	6. Treat and Trick

Notes:

+ Busy weekend meant I couldn't finish this before Touken Week finished, but…eh. It's really fun for me to write that Touka/Sasaki AU, so here's another fic in it! Let's say it appears after "Usagisland"? Prompt: **Halloween**.

+ Thanks once again to those that have left faves/reviews once again. -heart-

+ And with this, all the Touken Week oneshots are done. Hope you enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Trick and Treat<strong>

"Sorry for the wait," Touka says hastily, coming back to position at the front of the bakery cafe. She sorts through the menus distractedly. "How many people in your party?"

"One," says the customer, in a familiar voice, and Touka's heart seizes — she looks up — the name is tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop it, "_Kane —?_"

It's Sasaki. _Of course._ As usual. She bites her lips shut.

His brow furrows. "'Kane?'" he repeats, and Touka clears her throat.

"Um…that is, can I...help you," she manages.

"Oh. Yeah. One person," he repeats, and Touka nods and turns and starts leading him to a table, cursing to herself. Did she seriously slip up?

"I didn't know you worked here," Sasaki says thoughtfully behind her.

"Well, it's pretty busy," Touka says dryly, setting a menu down at a table. "In case you didn't notice from the line of princesses and zombies and zombie princesses going down the street."

"Oh, I, uh...did kind of notice that," Sasaki says. He sits down, pushing aside a little pumpkin-shaped light and prodding at purple-and-black streamers hanging down from the ceiling. "So everyone is really interested in the Halloween promo?"

"Yeah. And Yoriko asked me to help out."

"That's kind of you, Kirishima-san," Sasaki says, and she shrugs and hands him a menu.

"Just choose something. Oh, and," she sighs, "I forgot. You need to decide: 'Trick, or Treat?'"

He tilts his head. "What happens when I choose one or the other?"

"It's a surprise. Though," she says, looking him over, "I probably shouldn't be giving you the offer, since it doesn't look like you're wearing a costume anyway."

He smiles. "Are you sure?"

She blinks. For some reason, her pulse speeds up. "What?" she says, but before he can respond, someone raps on Touka's shoulder.

"Touka!" Yoriko gasps. "I'm so sorry, but can you please help out over here? Oh," she says with a strained laugh, "hello, Sasaki-san! So nice to see you! Sorry I have to take Touka away from you!"

"You're not —" Touka says, at the same time Sasaki says, "It's —"

And before either of them can finish, Touka is dragged away.

So fucking busy. What is it with this city's love of Halloween? The sun hasn't set yet and people are arriving in costume, bustling between tables in bloody tulle and pasty facepaint, asking if they can lean big cardboard machine guns against the windows. The hours rush past in a whirl as Touka seats people and takes orders and brings them out with her best smile.

She barely sees the people she's interacting with — there are so many. (And yet, no matter many come in and out, Sasaki stays at his window table, sipping coffee. When is he going to leave?) She tries to focus on the customers (though side-eyes him every time she walks into the kitchen — he's been here forever, isn't he out of coffee yet?). Every time she passes Sasaki she can't help examining him through her periphery. Each time, he seems focused on the papers spread in front of him.

It's so busy — her cheeks hurt from smiling at customers — her feet, so far from her Anteiku days, ache from walking back and forth. For just a moment, she indulges.

This isn't Yoriko's cafe — it's Anteiku, back to full health, and filled with ghouls and a couple humans too, eating together in peace. Despite her screaming and hitting him that day — or maybe even because of it — Kaneki had come back, safe and sound. He's an editor now, or a publisher, or even a writer, calmly working at the table as he waits for her to finish her shift...and once they're both free, they'll leave together, walking side-by-side with their usual coordination.

They'll take a train together, maybe change into Halloween costumes and roam around the city with everyone else. They'll get drunk in a bar and smear their fake blood. Exchange stories of the frustrations and ridiculousness of their customers and clients. Afterward, they'll stumble back to the home they share. And once the door is shut, Kaneki will quiet suddenly, and his kind expression will turn into something a little more fierce than usual, and he'll reach for the zippers of her costume, and —

Touka yelps as her hip jams suddenly into the side of an empty table, making it shake. It's close to Sasaki's table, and he straightens and calls out, "Are you alright?"

"Fine — just fine," she says hurriedly. She feels her face turning red, and when Sasaki smiles at her, she finds herself returning it, despite everything. On the way back to the front, she makes him another espresso, and sets it down on his table.

"Thanks," he says, startled but pleased.

"You look like you could use the caffeine," she tells him, indicating all the papers in front of him. He clears his throat and stacks them together, then removes his glasses and looks up at her.

"And if the truth is that I'm just waiting for a certain someone?"

It's so close to her little daydream that she snorts and just walks away. Wouldn't _that_ be nice — if for once it was Kaneki waiting for her, rather than the other way around? Thank goodness no one can tell how unusual her behavior is, how strange the wide grin is that's lingering on her face, how frankly weird the brightness of her voice is when she guides the next customer to a table and delivers her lines.

"Hello, and welcome to Cafe Pan. Thank you so much for waiting. We have a very special Halloween menu today, so I'd like to ask: 'Trick, or Treat?'"

"Nee-san?"

What? Touka looks more closely at who she just seated. "Hinami?"

Hinami smiles at her, uncertainly, setting the menu Touka gave her down on the table. Her bangs have been getting fairly long recently, and she brushes them out of her face. "Hi, Nee-san. Um, maybe it's a bad time..."

"No, no," Touka says, but her face turns redder. Shit, did Hinami see her earlier? Laughing like an idiot with Sasaki? The confused and thoughtful look Hinami is giving her seems to say _yes_. Hinami leans back, peering around Touka to see who Touka had been speaking to, and when Touka steps sideways to block her view, Hinami just leans forward. Her eyes narrow, squinting.

And then they widen.

"Hina —" Touka starts, but Hinami isn't listening — she's standing, rushing — putting her hand on Sasaki's shoulder.

"Nii-san!" she cries, and Sasaki looks up, startled. Despite everything, Touka swallows. Holds her breath.

"Nii-san," Hinami gasps, "I — I can't believe —"

"Sorry," Sasaki interrupts, smiling apologetically, "do I know you?"

Hinami is stunned into silence.

"Sasaki-san," Touka says, sweeping in, "ah, um, this is Hinami. She's — uh — my cousin."

"Sa…Sasaki-san?" Hinami echoes incredulously.

"I've told her a lot about you," Touka goes on. When Hinami remains silent and just continues searching Sasaki's face with confusion, Touka pokes her back. Hard.

Hinami gasps. A tear slides down her cheek and she fakes a cough, bends her head down to wipe it away discreetly.

"Ah — yeah — a lot," she sniffs. Another tear slips free and she bows, quickly and deep. "N-nice to meet you…Sasaki-san. I'm…I'm Hinami. Fueguchi Hinami."

"Fueguchi-san," Sasaki says, brows furrowing, "are you alright?" He sets a hand on her shoulder, and Hinami jumps.

"Ah — yeah," she says. Her face is back to its normal expression now: stoic, and still, and sad. She bows again. "Please excuse me."

She retreats back to the table Touka set her at, and collapses back into the seat. Touka swallows.

"Hinami —" she starts, and Hinami shakes her head.

"No, it's my mistake. I'm sorry for embarrassing you in front…that person, Nee-san. You just looked so happy…and that hair…I thought…well."

Her eyes narrow.

"I'm so stupid," she mumbles.

"Hey, quit that. We're going to go around for Halloween tonight, aren't we? Cheer up a little."

But instead of lightening, Hinami sighs and looks even dimmer. "About that. I'm actually here to tell you that we shouldn't."

"What! But you were so excited —"

"Ayato-kun said that he there's going to be extra Doves patrolling tonight. To keep an eye out, since a lot of humans have been writing in to the CCG and asking about extra defenses for Halloween."

Touka scoffs. "So what? There's no way they can keep an eye on everyone."

"But...with the..." _Quinxes,_ Hinami mouths.

"I'm not afraid of some weird experiments either," Touka snapped. "None of them know how to wield as well as the real thing."

"Nee-san," Hinami says, "please." Her eyes begin to water again. "I — just if we go out, and if you — if you, l-like Nii-san —"

"Hinami," Touka starts, with frustration, with pleading, "I _won't_ —"

"Touka?" comes Yoriko's voice from a distance, sounding stressed. "Touka, where are you?"

_Dammit!_

"One second!" Touka shouts back. She looks back at Hinami, trying to make her expression soft. "Come on, Hinami: 'Trick or Treat.' Choose one."

She doesn't take the bait. She sighs. "What's the difference?"

"Well, to be honest," Touka says in exasperation, "there's no real difference between the two. Here, anyway — you pretty much get the same thing. But it will be different at the places we'll go tonight."

"I said I'm not going."

"Hinami, you can't live like this. _We_ can't live like this. We're going to go out tonight."

"If you're going to hang out tonight," Sasaki says, slipping in, "I wonder if I could join?"

"Sure," Touka says hastily, before Hinami can answer. "That should be fine, right, Hinami?"

Hinami's face is puckering with distaste. "Nee-san!" she whines.

"Are you scared?" Sasaki asks. "What of?"

"Oh...oh...you know," Hinami says, swallowing. "I just...hear a lot of stories...about men getting drunk...a lot of sexual harassment."

"Well, if I come with you, I can protect you," Sasaki says. "How's that?"

"You'd do that?" Hinami asks, surprised. Touka hears what she doesn't say: _You, a human, would do that?_

"Of course," Sasaki says brightly. "Um, I know it doesn't look like it, but I pack a pretty good punch."

"Yeah, right," Touka says, rolling her eyes, and Sasaki chuckles.

"Well, not as good as you, of course, Kirishima-san..."

"What! How would you know?!"

"Ah — hmm — it just seems that way, I guess."

"It _seems that way_? From what?"

"Um...from..." Sasaki stops. "You know, I think I'm going to withdraw my statement."

"Oh, and why's _that_?"

"Because I don't want my speculation of your punching power to become firsthand experience," he explains, and before Touka can give him a sample of _firsthand experience,_ a sound interrupts them.

It's Hinami. She's _laughing._

One hand jumps to cover her mouth. She looks just as shocked at herself as Touka is. Another giggle escapes her, helplessly, and her other hand slaps over her mouth as well, stifling the noise ineffectually.

There's no way that Sasaki would know that Hinami's laughter comes few and far between these days. But when Touka glances at him, his expression is soft, even — relieved?

No, no, no. She's just imagining it. She must just be imagining it.

"So I can come along?" he asks, and Hinami hesitates.

"Okay," she bursts. "Let's all go! Together."

Thank goodness.

"Touka!" Yoriko wails, and Touka rushes off.

:::

There's an hour left until Touka's shift is over, and Sasaki and Hinami spend it chatting at the same table. They don't stop talking when they leave the bakery, or when they board the train home, or when they start walking up the stairs to Touka's apartment.

"I'm glad to see you two have become best friends in such a short time," Touka says dryly.

"Oh, Nee-san — I — I wouldn't say _best_ friends," Hinami stammers, covering her cheeks.

"I wouldn't either," Sasaki agrees. "But maybe, Fueguchi-chan, we could be..._vest_ friends?"

He points at the two of them. Hinami gasps and tugs at their clothing.

"You're — you're right! Vests! _Vest _friends! Nee-san, can you believe it?!"

"Somehow, I can," Touka groans. "Let's get in the costumes already."

Hinami had picked out some anime princess thing but been too embarrassed to wear it alone, and had begged Touka to get the exact same thing. Sasaki waits in the living room while they do up the zippers, shake off excess glitter, and apply makeup and (in Touka's case) gore.

"Nee-san," Hinami says, "you look horrifying."

"Good," Touka replies, dabbing a line of blood down the corner of her lip and down to her chin. "That's the spirit of Halloween, you know."

Hinami looks unconvinced. "Let's hurry and go meet Sasaki-san," she says, nudging her.

"Ha! You're pretty impatient now, huh? Ms. I-Want-To-Stay-In?"

Hinami flushes. "W-well, it's different now."

"Because Sasaki-san charmed you out?"

"N-no," Hinami protests. She bites her lip. "It's — it's because you looked so happy, Nee-san. Way happier than I've seen you in...in a long time."

That silences her. Touka rubs fake blood between forefinger and thumb.

"It's just because Sasaki looks like him," she says dully, and Hinami starts.

"I — no, I'm sure it isn't just —"

"It is," Touka interrupts, "and you know it."

"But — no, Sasaki-san is so nice, and so funny, and —"

"And has practically the same face and voice," Touka says, standing and patting her dress. "It's okay if you like him. Or if you think I like him. But don't get fooled into getting too close. In the end, he's just some random stranger. Remember that, okay?"

Hinami opens her mouth to say something else, but then shuts it with a sigh. "Okay."

They exit the room. Sasaki is sitting at the table. "Oh," he says, stranding. "Hello there, princesses." His eyes sweep over the two of them, linger a bit on Touka — and settle on Hinami. He tilts his head.

Hinami brushes her long bangs aside apprehensively. "Um, do I look okay?"

"You look great," Sasaki says, but his brow is knit, and Hinami swipes at her bangs again.

"Then…um…what's wrong?"

"Ah, nothing — it's just — your hair is a little long in the front. Do you want me to trim it for you?"

They stare at him. Hinami grows very still. Touka is about to make an excuse for her when Hinami says, "Um...sure."

Touka points out the drawer containing scissors and a hand mirror, and Hinami sits up straight and unmoving as Sasaki clips off a couple millimeters of hair from her fringe.

"There," he announces, flourishing the scissors and handing her the mirror. "How's it look?"

"Great," Hinami whispers. She is quiet, but beaming. She examines herself, then abruptly looks up at Sasaki and stands and — oh _no —_

"_Hina_ —" Touka starts, but it's too late — Sasaki falls back with an "_Oof_" as Hinami hugs him, hard. Her face is buried into his chest.

_Sorry,_ Touka mouths to Sasaki, but he doesn't see; he's looking down at Hinami with an expression Touka can't read. He wraps his arms around her, one after the other, hugging her back.

Touka presses a hand to her head. What did she _just say_ about getting close to him?

"Hinami," she calls warningly, and Hinami pulls away, pressing carefully at her teary eyes.

"Sorry...Sasaki-san," she says.

"That's okay," he tells her brightly. "I'm glad you like it, Fueguchi-chan. Well, should we get going? Princesses?"

He holds out his hand. Hinami reaches out to take it, and then takes Touka's hand and places it in his. Sasaki blinks but then recovers and lifts her hand to his mouth.

"W-wait," Touka sputters, and he stops, just before his lips brush her knuckles. Releases her with a nervous laugh.

"Sorry, Kirishima-san. Just a joke. Um, let's get going."

They head out, Touka following after them as her stomach churns with astonishment, and embarrassment, and regret.

:::

Now that the sun is down, the streets are clotted with people in costume. There are nurses and soldiers and bears and astronauts and cats and so on, all in a variety of versions: "cute," "bloody," even "disturbingly hyperrealistic." Touka and Hinami don't stand out too terribly, and though Sasaki asks if they'd like pictures taken with passerby, they always decline. Pictures aren't the safest thing for a ghoul to have, in any form; if one of them were caught, there'd be a clear link to the other.

"Thank you, though, Sasaki-san," Hinami says.

"Of course. Just just let me know if you see anything that's worth a shot," he says. He snickers and uses his fingers to press the shutter of an invisible camera, and seems disappointed when they just exchange bewildered glances.

"Of course. Just just let me know if you see anything that's worth a shot," he says. He snickers and uses his fingers to press the shutter of an invisible camera, and seems disappointed when they just exchange bewildered glances.

Disappointed, but not discouraged.

"Kirishima-san, don't you think it's weird how you never see a baby ghost? Is it because they're all at..._dayscare centers_?"

"Oh look, Kirishima-san, a vampire! I think! It's hard to tell with the face mask, isn't it? Maybe his..._coffin_...just got too bad."

"Oh, Kirishima-san, it looks like there's a lot of zombies over there. Maybe we should turn around before we hit a _dead end_, huh?"

Touka just rubs her head and does her best to smother helpless chuckles. Meanwhile, Hinami makes the rounds. Most of the stores and restaurants are part of a ward-wide "Trick or Treat" campaign and she seems intent on visiting every participating location.

"Trick or Treat?" ask the staff at various stores, and when Hinami replies "Trick!" every time, they hesitate and then hand over the proper promotional item: a popper, a paper monster mask, a fan with a holographic ghost, even, once, a half-hearted "Boo!" It's clear that "Treat" is the more popular option, but Hinami passes it up every time.

Touka can't blame her — with Sasaki around, she might have to force herself to eat the candy, or else keep coming up with excuses to save it for later. Still, Hinami's being a little too obvious. As she delightedly collects a sort of green goopy putty from another store, Touka glances at Sasaki to see if he finds anything strange. But he's looking in the opposite direction. Touka tries to follow his gaze, but doesn't see anything off. He's focusing on…some person with pigtails? Or — maybe that person with an eyepatch?

Before she can ask, Sasaki turns and calls out. "Fueguchi-chan, are you finished? I'd like to go this way next."

"Sure," Hinami says, and follows his finger down the street, in the opposite direction from where he'd been looking.

So weird. Touka eyes him warily, but no matter how closely she watches, he just continues to calmly scan the crowds — which is what everyone else is doing, really. He must feel her watching, because he turns and gives her that faint smile.

"Are you alright, Kirishima-san? Getting tired?"

"A little," she admits. "It's been a long day."

"Are you sure you don't want to participate in trick-or-treating? If you're worried about ending up carrying a lot of stuff, I can help you bring it around," he offers, and she snorts.

"I'm happy enough watching Hinami have fun." They watch and wave back as Hinami acquires a ghost-shaped bag and waggles it excitedly at them.

"How about you, Sasaki-san?" Touka asks. "Are you having fun?"

He doesn't answer. She looks over at him, and when she sees him staring at her intently, she looks away quickly, flustered. "What?"

He laughs. "Nothing. It's just…the first time you've asked me something like that."

Is it? Dammit. She makes herself shrug.

"It's just a question," she mutters, and Sasaki laughs again.

"Right. Yeah. Well," Sasaki says, "I'm having a lot of fun. The most fun that I've ever had on Halloween, that I can remember."

"Look at this!" Hinami says, running up and showing them a tiny cat keychain. "Isn't it cute? Its mouth is a flashlight."

"Really?" Sasaki asks, and when Hinami shines it in his face he cringes. "Ow!"

"Whoops — sorry, N — ah, Sasaki-san —"

"It's fine, it's fine. Here, can I see it?"

"Sure — wait, what are you going to do with it? No, no! Ahh, give it back, give it baaack!"

"What do you mean, it's just right here! You can't reach it? Maybe try jumping a little higher?"

"I can't! Ahh, Nee-san, get him, get him!"

"_Me_? Why do I —"

"I have heels! Go! Go!"

"I — augh! Hand it over already, Sasaki!"

Touka dances around him, huffing and grabbing ineffectually, getting in everyone's way as Hinami cheers her on. And when Touka finally executes a (fake) punch-and-kick to make Sasaki cringe long enough to snatch Hinami's toy back, all three of them are laughing.

:::

They wander around together until their feet ache, until Hinami's bag bulges, until even coffee can't fight off the exhaustion tugging at their eyelids. At their final stop, a cafe, Touka and Sasaki watch as quietly as possible as Hinami's head begins to droop...droop...and then pop upward with a blush and a gasp.

A minute later: _droop...droop...pop!_

The only evidence of Touka's her vehement laughter is her shaking shoulders. She looks over at Sasaki and sees he's doing the same.

She reaches out and shakes the satin poof of Hinami's left sleeve.

"Come on," she says, "let's go —"

She stops. _Home,_ she was going to say. But she and Hinami and…_he_ don't live together anymore.

She bites her lip. Waits. And when the sadness doesn't come, she feels even more disturbed.

_I still miss him,_ she tells herself. She does, she does.

But. If she's honest. The happiness that she feels when she's with Sasaki…is so distracting.

"Are you alright, Kirishima-san?"

"Yeah," she sighs. She leans back in her chair. Searches for a good excuse.

"I guess it would have been nice to go trick-or-treating after all," she decides, and Sasaki turns around in his chair, facing her.

"Lucky you," he says, holding out two fists with the fingers down. "Because I have a treat for you after all. Uh, or, a trick. Depending on what you choose."

She blinks. "Are you serious?"

He puts his hands behind his back, making a show of swapping the contents of both fists around.

"Alright," he says finally, "they're mixed up. Let's boo it. Trick or treat?"

"You're serious."

"Come on, Kirishima-san! Witch one?"

Trick? Or Treat? Treat is the obvious choice — the kind she's seen human women making all evening. As her mouth opens, she eyes him. Sees his expectant, honest smile.

"Trick," she blurts.

He blinks. "Ah…"

"What?" she says, surprised.

"It's just…I really thought you were going to choose the other thing." He pulls the "Trick" hand out from behind his back. Opens his fist.

His palm is empty.

Well, that's irritating. "You don't have _anything_?"

"Um," he says, "the truth is that if you chose 'Trick,' then I was going to offer you a kiss."

"But it was just a joke," he says quickly when Touka doesn't respond.

"Was it?" she asks. "Where's your pun, then?"

"I — ah — um — there has to be one somewhere. Hold on, let me think — um —"

She puts a hand on his mouth and looks around. Everyone at the cafe looks occupied. She remembers how she felt earlier, leaving her apartment, stopping him impulsively before his lips touched her hand. She'd felt…so much regret.

"It's okay," she tells him. "If you…do that."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

He looks around, confirming no one is watching them, and then scoots his chair closer to hers. Raises the "Trick" hand to her chin. Rubs his thumb against the fake blood at the corner of her mouth, smearing it away. Leans down, eyes closed.

The white strands of his hair tickle her forehead before she closes her own eyes. His kiss is soft and warm and before she realizes it her tongue flicks out, presses against his lower lip, runs from corner to corner. She leans up against him, smothering his sound of surprise, and her hand raises into his white hair, pulling him closer.

When they part, it's with shivers and swallows. And a realization that it's been much more than a couple of moments, judging by an older cafe staff member shaking their head at them.

"Nice trick," Touka says, straightening her chair, and Sasaki does the same.

"Ah…yeah…thanks. You too," he adds.

This is so embarrassing.

And somehow still very pleasant.

"So…what was the 'Treat?'" Touka asks, and Sasaki chuckles nervously and shows her the other hand, which is still closed. He opens his fist.

His palm is empty.

"To be honest," he says sheepishly, "there wasn't any real difference between the two. Um, get it? It's kind of — it's like _both_ a trick and a treat — I mean, I guess you ended up asking for a trick after all, so —"

"You — _you_ —"

Her face turns red. She raises a hand to hit his shoulder, and he yelps and catches it. Twists it around. Their fingers intertwine. They pause, and Touka starts to pull her hand back — then stops.

His grip is so…nice. She pushes her palm back, gently, feeling the way their hands align, the strange and frightening perfection of it, so similar to how perfect his mouth had felt on her own. Something in her chest shakes, and for once, for the first time in a long time, it has nothing to do with the ache she has for who is missing.

The contact between them is delicate, as delicate as the breathless silence, and is broken by a yawn.

"Nee-san?"

They release hands immediately.

"Hinami," Touka says, turning. "Are you ready to go home?"

"Yeah," she says, rubbing her eyes. "Sorry…sorry that I…"

"It's fine," Touka tells her as Hinami covers her mouth with a fan. "It's been a long night. We've had a great time, haven't we?"

"Really great," Sasaki agrees. He walks them back to Touka's apartment, where Hinami collapses, princess dress and all, onto the couch. She's not awake when Touka drapes a blanket over her. Sasaki hangs back in the entryway, and when Touka walks back to him, he nods.

"Well," he says, "goodbye."

His silhouette — his back, turned toward her — his steps retreating down the hall — Touka leans out the door, calls out.

"Sasaki-san! I'll — I'll see you later?"

Sasaki pauses. Turns back.

"See you later," he agrees. And —

And, dammit. She believes it.


	7. Backburner:re

Notes:

+ Here's a bonus add-on to my shameless "Backburner" AU, as requested duckling-kouhai on Tumblr :) duckling-kouhai asked for something from that AU in Sasaki's point of view. So, here's a companion piece to the original "Backburner."

+ One weird thing: the original Backburner was intended to have taken place over 10 years (since that was the Touken Week prompt)...but…let's just forget that for now and pretend the events happen relatively closer to one another haha;;

+ Yeah so I definitely finished writing this before chapter 7 spoilers arrived and rendered several details herein very un-canon. Welp, I guess that's where the "shameless" part of "shameless AU" comes in owo

+ Hope you like it~

* * *

><p><strong>Backburner:re<strong>

**1. **You'd think he'd be pretty good at controlling himself by now. Or at least accustomed to it. Or, at least, resigned.

The truth is that controlling himself is as itchy, as achy, as wrenchingly difficult as ever. But there's so much to do that his concerns go...what was the phrase he tried the other day?

"On the backburner."

Akira blinks. "Huh?"

"It's an English phrase. It refers to when you're putting something on hold, or waiting on something. But it has something to do with backs," he explains, and it's strangely fitting, because even now the skin on his is giving off disturbing little twitches.

Akira eyes him. "Were you listening to anything I was saying?" she asks, and he laughs nervously.

"Ah — yeah — of course! Um...it was about...ghouls, right?"

She doesn't buy it. The look she gives him is poisonous. The hairs on the back of his neck raise.

_Get ready,_ a voice advises darkly.

_Shut up,_ he tells it. _It's just Akira-san._

"If only you spent even half the time you spend thinking about puns on thinking through your work instead," she mutters. But she isn't too hard on him. Quinxes have their own challenges.

Such as that voice he hears, that no one else can perceive. Such as the fact that at odd moments his vision blurs and he feels like it's hard to breathe. Like something (_someone_) is about to burst out of him, with embers, and smoke.

:::

**2. **He usually meets up with Mutsuki in front of his apartment, so they can head to work together.

"You know the area so well, sir," Mutsuki remarks.

Sasaki doesn't answer immediately. There has to be something there — something about knowing the city like the back of his hand, and maybe something about backhanded compliments. But a minute later he can't quite make the pun happen, and he shrugs.

"You'll get to know it too," he reassures. Mutsuki nods and adjusts his eyepatch forlornly.

"You'll get better at control, too," Sasaki adds.

"I'd be fine if I could get a kagune at all," Mutsuki mutters.

"It's not like all your problems stop even after you get one," Sasaki points out.

He remembers those early times himself, when there were so many more bad days than there are now. Bad days when he can't speak, when he can barely think because he's focusing too much on breathing, on maintaining control of his body. Days when the screaming in his skull can't be completely quelled, and he's forced to come in with an eyepatch that makes coworkers silently give him a wide berth.

_You're not strong enough to take all of them, if they decide you're trouble after all. You're weak._

Sasaki shakes his head. _Shut up._

Sitting with Mutsuki on the train, Sasaki's eyes skate casually across the faces of passerby, searching instinctively for gazes that flicker of black and red.

"Want to grab some coffee?" Mutsuki asks when they approach the offices. Sasaki's eyes narrow in thought.

_I haven't bean a fan of..._ No.

_I don't like coffee a latte..._ Nah.

...ah!

"Not today," he says, triumphantly, "but maybe next time I'll give it a shot."

"Alright," Mutsuki says, scratching his head. "Um, would it be okay if you waited for me, at least?"

_And, it's a miss._

Sasaki makes a smile. "Sure," he replies, and follows Mutsuki to the cafe at the bottom floor of the CCG's offices, stopping to wait just outside the doors. Every time they open they release the pungent odor of newly-ground beans, and he rubs his forehead as his lungs fill with breaths of it.

His body begins to ache, throbbing in time with the weird, achy thrash of the non-human organ inside him. He feels the slither of fingers on his shoulder, feels a whisper that hisses out from an inky hole in his skull.

_Go back —_

The drag of something sharp against his ear.

"Sir?"

_Go back —_

Inside his ear.

_Go back go back —_

"Sir, can you hear me?"

_Go back go back go back —_

Sasaki jumps as Mutsuki tugs his sleeve.

"S-sorry," Sasaki says shakily. "Um, yeah, let's go."

_Go back Go Back GO —_

"Shut _up,_" he mutters.

"Sir? Did you say something?"

Sasaki clears his throat. "Nothing. Sorry."

:::

**3. **It's always difficult to figure out which books to get next, mostly because people have started sending him requests.

Well, one person, mostly.

_AK: How about Takatsuki's new one?_

_SH: Return the ones you borrowed first!_

_AK: I will once you give me a time to meet you._

_SH: Any time is fine! Just find me in the office, or even just leave them on my desk._

Sasaki presses "Send" and snaps his cellphone shut, then continues forward as a bookstore register becomes free. Takatsuki's novels are featured there, and he eyes them. Skims the blurbs of a couple of them.

"Oh," says the cashier, "it's you! I was wondering when you'd come in for Takatsuki Sen's new novel."

Sasaki blinks. "I'm sorry, I think you have me mistaken. I've never bought a Takatsuki book here."

"Oh, I..." The cashier stares at him in confusion up, down and then turns red and bows deeply. "So it seems. I'm so incredibly sorry for my mistake."

"It's alright," Sasaki says. "Really, it's fine. I get that a lot."

"Then — are you interested in reading one of Takatsuki's book?" the cashier asks. "I can add it on."

Sasaki puts the book down. "No thanks."

Tragedies are just too depressing.

:::

**4. **They know ghouls will adapt quickly to the revelation of quinxes on the street, so their first strikes are fast, and brutal. They don masks, too, though as he wears his Sasaki can't help the feeling that it feels wrong. Off. It just...doesn't sit right.

_It's because it doesn't suit you._

_Shut up._

As if any ghoul's mask could ever "suit" him.

They chase down ghouls one by one, striking them down before they can share word that there are Doves with kagune. They all understand that someone's going to slip up sooner or later, and though Urie watches Mutsuki closely, in the end it's Sasaki that ambushes a ghoul with a rabbit mask, and attacks, and misses. The ghoul runs, and he gives chase, his sharpening focus drowning out the quinxes shouting behind him.

His heart is racing, so fast that it hurts, his ears are filled with the drumming of his pulse, and a loud, ticking slither, he has to catch her, _he has to catch her,_ his rinkaku spear out and she leaps, dodges him by a hair. Her grace leaves him breathless and too late he realizes that she's already turned and has aimed a kick right between his eyes.

Something (_someone_) reaches over his shoulders — into them — seizes his muscles, yanks him down. A perfect dodge. The rabbit ghoul sails over him and collides into a bunch of trash cans with a cry of pain that makes Sasaki wince.

_Go,_ he urges himself, and spins on his heel and races after her, the point of one kagune aimed at her face.

But he's not fast enough.

Something (_someone_) makes him pause, for just a moment, just a millisecond — and then his kagune crash down, on empty air, on solid pavement.

Adrenaline — and something else — has him whirling to face her a moment later. She's bleeding, but standing straight, defiant, even with her ukaku beginning to sputter out. One looks almost gone completely.

_There she is!_ he hears a voice scream inside. _There! Finally!_

He can get her, she's all alone, he can get her. He just needs to be fast.

He aims his kagune at her again. So close. Her strength is almost gone all it would take is one stab, one hook, one twist.

But his rinkaku are heavy. Leaden. Slow as honey.

He's horrified.

_I can't do it._

And she doesn't stay to watch him fail. She's gone in a heartbeat, and there's nothing left for him to do but drag himself back to regroup. The quinxes eye him. He doesn't meet their stares.

"She got away," Sasaki admits. Shirazu curses. Urie says nothing, but jams his headphones over his ears and stalks away. Saiko shrugs.

"Can we go home then?" she asks.

"Yeah," Sasaki sighs. "Let's go."

They leave, in tense silence. He makes his way back with Mutsuki, who lingers at his doorway, chewing his lip.

"Sir, I just want to say that it's alright," Mutsuki tells him. "What happened today, I mean. It's fine."

Sasaki makes a smile. "You don't need to reassure me."

"Alright." Mutsuki shifts his weight from leg to leg. "But, sir, if I could I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"How did you know the ghoul was a woman? The ghoul wasn't wearing a dress or anything...and it didn't sound like you got their mask off..."

"I...I just knew," Sasaki answers with a shrug. Mutsuki frowns at him, but doesn't pursue the matter.

Sasaki considers it later, in bed, staring at the ceiling. Was it the way the ghoul moved? Was it just the cutesy mask she had?

_No,_ says something (_someone_) inside him. It doesn't offer an alternate explanation, but as Sasaki drifts into sleep he feels it crawl around him, snug. Laying its palms and its many many legs across his eyes.

That night _those dreams_ of his begin to get stronger. Begin to get both more vibrant and more muddy. He flails, thrashes, fights to the sound of a clock ticking down: _sshk sshk sshk_. Shadowy figures glance and glare. One stands out from the rest, and she snarls, YOU'RE NOT A HERO.

And, DON'T COME BACK!

So much time passing. The clock ticking. _Sshk. Sshk. Sshk._

His chest is swollen with words he can't form — an apology, a plead, a scream. He reaches out, to try and placate her, but the only thing he can move are the blades of his kagune, and they shred her into pieces.

_How do you know it's a woman? Sshk sshk sshk._

_How did you get this weak? Sshk sshk sshk._

_How could you leave her alone?_

The clock ticking. _Sshk. Sshk. Sshk._

_No,_ he realizes.

_It's not a clock._

_It's the sound of his fingers clipping off joint by joint it's the sound of scissors snipping off bangs it's the sound of ribs cracking beneath a steel beam it's the sound of coffee grinding it's the sound a centipede makes in —_

:::

**5. **No one thinks it's strange when he suddenly begins spending his spare time in cafes. Mutsuki even remarks, worriedly, that it makes a little bit of sense — after all, sir, you look so tired — are you sure you're alright?

"Yeah," Sasaki replies noncommittally, before leaving and heading to a new cafe. The poignant smell of coffee, which had always bothered him, is suddenly annoyingly soothing. Like bitter-tasting medicine. Like iodine.

_Keep searching_, something (_someone_) urges.

"Shut up," he mutters.

"E-excuse me?" the waitress says, and Sasaki straightens.

"Ah — ah — I mean — an espresso, please," he says, and the waitress blinks at him.

"Kaneki?"

"What?" he says.

"That is — Kaneki Ken?" she asks.

"S-sorry," Sasaki says, "I don't understand."

The waitress laughs nervously.

"I'm sorry — you just — you really resemble —" She shakes her head. "I'm very sorry, it's clear I'm mistaken."

"I-it's alright," Sasaki assures her. "I get that a lot."

"Thank you so much for your understanding," the waitress says, giving another flustered bow. "Did you want anything else?"

"No thanks," Sasaki tells her, and the waitress nods.

"Then, I'll be right back." She leaves, and Sasaki watches her go, feeling strangely shaken. Who was she? People often give him mistake him for someone else, despite his unusual hair coloring — but there's never been a whole name attached. _Kaneki Ken_.

Before the waitress enters the kitchen, she pauses by another table, looks down at the customer there — and then, without a word, continues on.

Sasaki continues to watch the waitress carefully after she brings back his drink. Sips. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, but gives up when he sees her take off her apron and sit down to join the customer she looked at earlier.

"We should get out more," the waitress says wistfully. "We're getting older, you know? It would be nice to have a boyfriend."

The woman — her friend, most likely — shrugs. Her back is to him, but something about the motion gives him pause.

"You're really not interested?" the waitress wonders. "Oh — what about — a girlfriend?"

Her friend shrugs again. And this time he's sure there is something familiar about it, something that makes his throat dry, that makes everything hot, that makes something (_someone_) ache inside.

And he feels…relief.

_Finally,_ the voice in his head cries, and this time when Sasaki mumbles "Shut up," there is silence.

_True silence._

He leaves the cafe, shaking, stunned by the quiet in his brain. It comes back again, soon enough; but it doesn't take a first-class investigator to put two and two together. He comes back to the cafe again, and, when he hears the two women arranging a group date, he commits the location and time to memory. When the day arrives, he comes in after work, just in time to see the waitress and — and her friend tip back a glass of sake.

He blinks. And he's not sure who it is that thinks, _She's beautiful._

The way her smile doesn't come after every joke that's told at the table. The way she idly brushes her hair out of her face. Her sudden enthusiasm when she drinks another glass of sake, and —

He looks away hastily, blushing with embarrassment, as the friend stands and rushes for the bathroom. Just as she turns the corner, he glances up again, just in time to see her hand press against her mouth before she goes out of sight.

His head chimes with warning.

_No way,_ he thinks. Not her. Definitely not. No.

She notices him. He's sure she's noticed him, because he can read her expression as well as any of his favorite books, and he can hear the panic in her voice as she declares to her waitress friend, "Oh, no, no, no, come onn, none of that! I looove it!"

_It can't be._

He goes to the cafe again — spots her easily, in her usual seat. She doesn't look up at him, but he feels the edge of her gaze burn into his back. She turns, very slowly, the page of her book. She orders fruit juice, and a scone.

And though all the signs say otherwise, he knows.

_She's a ghoul._

:::

**6. **And he thinks he likes her.

_What do I do?_ he asks, but the voice doesn't answer. This isn't the type of problem it can help him solve, and he's fairly sure no one in the CCG would take kindly to this sort of dilemma. Days pass and the only thing he feels for sure is that he can't leave her alone.

Still, the chasm between not wanting to leave her and not having the courage to say "hello" is pretty huge, and when she finally confronts him, he's relieved.

And bewildered by the shock in her eyes.

"It's — me," she says, so quickly the words tumble over one another. "It's — it's Touka. Kirishima Touka."

"Oh," he says. And then: "Nice to meet you, Kirishima-san."

The waitress comes to save her from her shock, and he remembers again the first day that he was here in the cafe, and that first verbal stumble: _Kaneki Ken._ There's a story there, and he's sure he's read it already: something that involves uncomfortable exes, and broken promises, and affection lingering long past its welcome. It's a story type he isn't overly fond of, and he launches forward, filled abruptly with hope, and excitement, and certainty. If that's the story, he's sure he can rewrite it for her.

"Weird cafe, huh?" he says, trying a smile. And she doesn't laugh at his joke, but it doesn't change the fact that he feels more cheerful than he's felt in a long, long time.

:::

**7. **The afternoon, and the next day, and the next week, passes in remarkably compatible chatter. Kirishima Touka shares his opinion on books (though he's surprised to learn she's read everything of Takatsuki Sen's). The few stories she tells about her waitress friend and her cousin are hilarious, and she even seems to tolerate his puns, though not without protest.

"So a ferris wheel is also a ferrous wheel, huh," she says after a moment, and he's warmed immensely by the ghost of a smile she couldn't quite kill away completely. "Why do you like puns so much, anyway?"

He shrugs. "I like comedy. Though I know a huge Takatsuki Sen fan like you might not be able to understand..."

He trails off as her gaze gets distant. He swallows.

_No Takatsuki Sen. Got it._

"Puns are just interesting," he says, trying to pull her back. "They simultaneously _are_ something that you know, and _aren't_. And they only make sense if you and someone else share the same knowledge in the same moment. The same pun five minutes later won't have the same effect. You know what I mean?"

"I can't really say I do. You have an unexpectedly romantic view of puns," Kirishima says dryly. But not dismissively.

"Aha...maybe my explanation was a little too heavy. I would have snuck a pun in there if I had been able to think of one," he says sadly.

"Guess you're just not punny enough," Kirishima says, with a voice that is equally sad, and he bursts out laughing, and can't stop until they leave the carriage.

He suggests all of their meetings: the ferris wheel, a movie, the observation deck of a tall government building, a ferry that they take at sunset, watching as the skyline lights up. She is always guarded when they meet but her small smile becomes easier and easier to coax free. Her mere presence is enough to quiet the din of all his nightmares, and that voice in his head. It's in her vicinity that he feels, for the first time in memory, like…himself.

He hides, successfully, the nature of his job; and allows both of them, too, to maintain the illusion of her humanity. They give each other no labels, and make no promises.

"Goodbye," he says, each time he leaves.

"Goodbye," she responds with a nod.

"See you later," he says, looking back a few steps later, and she brushes her hair from her face, and sighs, and gives the faintest smile.

"See you later."

:::

**8. **"You seem so energetic recently," Mutsuki says over breakfast. "Have you been getting better sleep?"

"Yup," Sasaki says, and then chuckles. "Good thing, too. I was getting pretty tired of not sleeping."

"Sounds great," Mutsuki says, and Sasaki's chuckle quells.

_And, it's a miss._

But even that can't dampen his mood. He counts the days between their meetings, escapes to her as soon and as secretly as possible amidst talks of increasing efforts to eradicate ghouls.

"You're always busy nowadays," Shirazu remarks one day before he can quite get away.

"Yeah," Saiko sighs, fishing a bag of noodle snacks out of her pocket. "How can you handle it?"

"With both hands, usually," Sasaki says distractedly, and the words have their desired effect; everyone turns away with a groan and leaves him alone to think, and confirm CCG strike plans.

There are going to be actions in multiple wards this weekend, which might spill into others, if things go well. In other words, an amusement park or a government building on the opposite side of the city won't cut it this time. He needs to take her far away.

He waits, for an internal protest that should be inevitable. _What are you doing?_ he's expecting. _She's a ghoul._

But, by some morbid miracle, there is nothing.

He sighs. Pulls up a tourism site and skims. He was always getting ragged on for sympathizing too much, but this seems like a new low.

_Or,_ he thinks, straightening excitedly, _a new high._

An island a whole two hours away by train and ferry — perfect, perfect. He reaches for the phone, taps through the address book without looking until he hits the innocuous (if embarrassing) entry that reads, _T-chan_.

"Okay," she mumbles, eventually, on the other end of the call. "I'll go."

And when he searches for her at the train station that weekend — when he finds her waving back at him — it feels like nothing could ever go wrong.

:::

**9. **Of course, it does.

His heart drops when the report comes in.

"It's Rabbit," Urie says, the instant he sees the photo of the investigator's corpse.

"Huh?" Mutsuki says. "How can you tell?"

"The splash of the needles!" Shirazu says excitedly. "Right?"

"Yes," Sasaki confirms. He's their first-class leader; he can't lie about this, especially if two people have already picked up on it. Still, his voice is leaden. "See how the tracking is uneven? It's clearest here, over his cheek."

"Ah," Mutsuki realizes. "And Rabbit only has one wing."

_Track it down,_ is the order written on the folder, and the rest of the day is spent investigating: checking out the scene, searching for and interviewing eyewitnesses, examining the vicinity for clues. A woman weeps as she describes finding the body, and her daughter demands why they haven't done their job. An old man goes on and on about his missing jacket from the war days. They follow a trail of blood left on the eaves and on laundry hung out to dry, and to Sasaki's mixed relief and anxiety, they find it leads nowhere.

"Rabbit got away," Mutsuki murmurs, taking samples. "And I'm willing to bet most of this isn't Rabbit's blood."

Sasaki hopes so.

They search until it gets dark, and then Mutsuki goes home and Sasaki searches more. He takes up all the records he can think of that might be related to her, and then several extra, and mixes them into incoherent chaos on his desk. He flits through census data and database entries and flags a couple suspects who definitely aren't _Kirishima Touka_.

On his way out of the office for the night, Urie stops, takes one headphone off his ear, and surveys Sasaki's desk with narrow eyes.

"You're unexpectedly busy," he remarks.

"Is it that unexpected to find me doing my job?" Sasaki laughs.

Urie eyes him. "You must really care about this ghoul," he says.

"Rabbit's been on our list for a long time," Sasaki says with a shrug. "It's possible this could even be the same Rabbit that got Mado Kureo-san."

"Possible?" Urie snorts. "More like obvious."

"Want to help me out?" Sasaki asks, and Urie shakes his head and replaces his headphone.

"No, I'm done investigating Rabbit for the day."

"Good night, then," Sasaki calls after him brightly.

As soon as Urie is gone, the smile drops from Sasaki's face. He rubs his eyes beneath his glasses. _Let her be okay,_ he begs again, and continues drowning his anxiety with work. He covers her trail with densities of false targets and misdirection. Akira finds him the next morning and kicks his chair until he wakes up, with a start.

"Go home," she tells him flatly. "And get some real rest."

"Uh…u-understood." He stumbles out, only half-conscious the whole way back to his apartment and his bed.

He wakes up again at the sound of his phone ringing. The screen reads _T-chan_, and he grabs it. The only thing that prevents him yelling into it is that his voice is hoarse from lack of sleep. "H-hello?!"

For an instant he's afraid that it won't be her voice that answers. But then he hears a quiet: "Hey."

"How are you?" Sasaki asks, hoping he doesn't sound as frantic as he feels.

"I'm good," she says, and his head drops onto his pillow.

_She's okay. She's okay. She's okay!_

Pause.

"Um...how are you?" she asks back.

"Good," he sighs. "I'm good."

Pause.

"Do you want to go to a bar?" she asks.

"Ah…sure," he says. "When?"

"Tonight."

He glances at his clock. "You mean in a couple hours?" he asks with a tired half-chuckle.

She doesn't laugh. "Are you free or not?"

"Ah, yeah. I'll see you there."

When they meet, her eyes are dark beneath, but she looks otherwise well and unharmed. He only just holds back his sigh of relief, which is good, because she is watching him closely.

"Had some troubles yesterday," he admits with a humorless chuckle.

"That makes two of us," she mutters, pouring him a glass of sake. They exchange glances, then cheer each other, and tip their glasses back.

He doesn't protest when she follows him to his neighborhood. His home. His door. He turns toward her and she regards him with exhausted eyes, then smooths a hand over his wrinkled brow. Removes his glasses and folds them into her collar. Presses her mouth to his.

His stomach twists, exquisitely. He sighs against her, kisses her back, tasting gently. He winds his arms beneath her blouse and around her waist.

_She's so different,_ he thinks. And he isn't in the mood to wonder how her body could ever feel _different_ when now is the first time that his hands have ever touched the luscious softness of her skin, the first time he's felt her shiver and hold him closer.

He kicks apart his messily-folded futon and they collapse onto it, she tearing at his jacket and shirt, he pulling her dress over her hips. He finds his breath coming raggedly, and he freezes as his eye flickers black — but just as it does, Kirishima places a hand over his face.

"Close them," she says.

"Kirishima-san," he whispers, and in the interstices of her fingers his human eye sees her blush.

She repeats, "Close them."

He does. No argument, no puns. After a moment he hears and then feels the slither of satin against his skin — she's wrapping his tie over his eyes — and he almost, almost protests.

_I know already,_ he wants to say. _I've known. I've always known._

_Kirishima-san, I — have always —_

But he's too breathless to explain anything, much less something he can barely understand. He raises his hands to her shoulder blades, and feels — only because he's expecting it — the near-imperceptible fog of warmth of there, brushing against the whorls of his fingers, like a flame of feather down.

She fumbles with his zipper, sets her legs on either side of his waist. His nails dig in with a sharp inhale as her weight settles and twists down.

"Touka," he gasps, before he can stop himself, and he pulls her close, closer. Her hands rest everywhere he wants them to, and it's like she knows him already, to the marrow.

"I feel," he murmurs, "like I've been waiting for this for a long time," and she kisses him, sucks the tip of his tongue, and each of his trembling, curling fingers.

She murmurs back. "Me too."

:::

**10. **_"I want us to last."_

There are so many translations of those words; there's so much potential. "Last" itself can mean _the end,_ but when something "lasts" it also _remains._

So if he were to tell her something like, _I want us to last —_

Would it mean they would be together forever?

Or is it too close to the idea that they would be the end?

He's still toying with those words, turning them over and over in his head, when a shout echoes through the office.

_"Urie-san and Shirazu-san found Rabbit!"_

Sasaki is up in an instant — and running, running, running. Yells chorus behind him, but he ignores all of them, even ignores the cries of Mutsuki, who tries to keep up but falls behind as soon as Sasaki bursts out of the office doors.

He takes the quickest route he knows to the place listed in the census as her residence, and finds nothing but the busted-open door, and her shattered rabbit mask, and the splatter of glass and blood beneath her window. He shoves his way past bystanders, following the trail of shouting and property damage, stumbling with desperation, panting. His mind is filled with screaming, with berating, with demands that don't make sense.

_How could I have left her alone —_

_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm —_

_Please don't let her be —_

_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm —_

_This is why I did it, because I couldn't lose her —_

_I can't lose her, not again, I can't, I —_

Up ahead, the investigators are crowded around something, _no, no, no_, red is pooled on the ground, _no, I'm sorry, no,_ he pushes them aside and maybe it isn't her after all — but _no,_ it is, and she's alive, but her black eyes are hazy, and the mouth he kissed is spitting blood, and gaping, and gasping.

"Goodbye," she manages.

And, "See you later."

Something (_someone_) breaks inside him. Spills out all across his insides, gooey and dense as an egg yolk, saturates every vein with black. He reels, raises a hand to his brow as his vision becomes both vibrant and muddy.

_I need strength,_ he thinks, and for the first time it's not so much a plead as it is an echo, from months past. Ages past. A whole life past.

He's sweating, panting. When his hand comes down, his ghoul's eye regards her, sees the way astonishment makes her slowing pulse fast.

It slips out in a breath, before he knows exactly what he is saying, or exactly who is saying it.

"Touka-chan."

And.

Her eyes water. Her teeth, her fists, clench. Suddenly, he knows.

"Please," she gasps, trying to push herself to her feet. "Help me."

And his hand grabs hers.


End file.
